jordan valley

Qarawat Bani Hassan, a Palestinian village in the West Bank water shortage since Israel’s national water company decided to reduce its supply. This past July, Israeli activists visited the village and heard first-hand how the residents cope.

Next door to the plush Israeli settlements of the Jordan Valley live small Bedouin communities who must struggle for even the smallest bit of water. By Eitan Kalinski More than 90 percent of the West Bank's Jordan Valley region are Palestinians. Less than 10 percent are Israeli settlers. Yet when it comes to water distribution, it turns out, we see a different distribution: settlers are entitled to between eight and nine times more water, while Palestinian communities are subject to a policy of water deprivation. In fact, this is a policy of ethnic cleansing, whose goal is a Jordan Valley bereft…

Israel's National Water Company, Mekorot, supplies water to Israeli settlements in Area C of the West Bank while Palestinians are denied access to wells and pipes that run through their land. Watch Israeli and international activists show solidarity with Bedouin living on the edge of the village of Fasayil in the Jordan Valley.

Israeli authorities have demolished more Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank thus far in 2016 than in any other calendar year in the last decade. Israeli authorities destroyed 33 structures, 20 of them homes, across the West Bank since the beginning of August. The demolitions have left 53 people, including 25 minors, homeless, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. The demolitions began on August 4th in the Al-Mu’arrajat community in the Jordan Valley, where four homes were destroyed and 14 people were left homeless. On August 8 authorities bulldozed two homes in the village Fasayil in the Jordan Valley,…

And why it might even hinder a political solution. By Yonathan Mizrachi Political movements calling for an economic boycott of Israel are working to advance a model based on the boycott of Apartheid South Africa and the critical role it played in ending white minority rule in that country. The parallel drawn between the economic boycott of South Africa and the one advanced by Palestinians and pro-Palestinians activists against Israel reinforces the view that Israel is an apartheid state. However without going into the question of whether Israel is an apartheid state, it is clear that one of the central…

Settlers are trying to spin water shortages as a problem that affects both Palestinians and Jews in the same manner. That couldn't be further from the truth. By Dror Etkes The recent reports on water crisis in Palestinian areas of the West Bank were accompanied by a story of another water shortage: this time in Israeli settlements. Let's get one thing straight — there has never been a "water shortage" in the settlements. When settlers open up the tap at home or in their garden, the amount and quality of the water is identical to that which comes out in…

A recent poll finds that 72 percent of Jewish Israelis believe Israel's control over the Palestinian territories does not constitute occupation. So what do you call military rule over a captive population that didn't vote for the army to be there? Depending on who you speak to, the word "occupation" is either the most loaded or the most ignored term in Israel-Palestine. For some, it's a canard bandied about by traitorous leftists who want nothing more than to destroy the country by smearing it into oblivion; many believe that Israel cannot occupy territory that the bible says was promised by…

The Israeli army has displaced more Palestinians since the start of this year than it did in all of 2015, the UN reports. Dozens protest the fourth such demolition in Khirbet Tana in recent months. By Ahmad al-Bazz / Activestills.org Around 100 Palestinians protested the Israeli army’s stepped-up campaign of home demolitions by holding Friday prayers in front of a partly demolished mosque in Khirbet Tana, a small village east of Nabus. The mosque dates back to Ottoman times. A total of 54 structures were demolished in nine Palestinian communities across the West Bank on Thursday alone, displacing 124 people,…

Demolitions take place in two areas of the West Bank as Israel's High Court prepared to hear a high-profile case on the matter. Photos by Ahmad Al-Bazz/Activestills.org Text by Haggai Matar The Israeli army demolished 17 structures, including family homes, in the Khirbet Tana, an impoverished Palestinian hamlet in the occupied Jordan Valley on Wednesday. This was the third time Israeli forces demolished homes in Khirbet Tana in recent months, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, including shelters that were donated for families made homeless by previous demolitions. Israeli authorities refuse to connect the village to the electricity or water…

Over 500 Palestinians have been displaced by the demolitions since the start of 2016, the vast majority of them in the West Bank. Israel demolished 313 Palestinian structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem between January 1 and February 15 2016, more than half the total such number in all of 2015. More than a third of those demolitions were carried out within the space of a week, between February 9 and 15, according to the UN's humanitarian agency, OCHA. [tmwinpost] The intensive rate of demolitions since the start of the year is in marked contrast to a relative…

Recent wave of home demolitions has left dozens of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley without a roof over their heads just days before a rainy weekend. Photos and text by Keren Manor and Oren Ziv / Activestills.org Israeli authorities accompanied by bulldozers demolished dozens of structures in several Palestinian villages in the Jordan Valley on Thursday. The demolitions, which affected the al-Farisiya and Betardel communities, respectively, came a day after Israeli authorities demolished seven homes and six structures in two other villages in the area, leaving 71 Palestinians homeless. According to Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, this is the largest…

The JNF has played a fundamental role in the displacement of the villagers of al-Araqib, an unrecognized Bedouin village that Israeli authorities demolished for the 90th time last week. Later this month the organization is holding a 'Bedouin Night' party in London. The Jewish National Fund in the United Kingdom (JNF UK) will be hosting a Bedouin-themed party catering to young professionals in London later this month. According to the invitation, the event — which is slated to take place on November 26th — will be held at a "secret Central London location" in a "unique Bedouin style venue," and will…

Israel demolished 143 Palestinian structures in August, the highest such total in five years. The wave of demolitions came amid severe heat waves and has left children homeless as they start the new school year. Israel demolished 143 Palestinian structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the month of August, the highest such total in five years, according to statistics released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA-oPt). The wave of demolitions has displaced nearly 200 Palestinians, many of them children. Some of the highest concentrations of demolitions occurred during a record-breaking heatwave…

About +972 Magazine

+972 is an independent, blog-based web magazine. It was launched in August 2010, resulting from a merger of a number of popular English-language blogs dealing with life and politics in Israel and Palestine.

+972 is an independent, blog-based web magazine. It was launched in August 2010, resulting from a merger of a number of popular English-language blogs dealing with life and politics in Israel and Palestine.